


The Lady is a Vamp

by objectlesson



Category: Descendants (2015)
Genre: Dress Up, First Time, Fluff, Genderqueer Character, Humor, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-04 05:49:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5322830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/objectlesson/pseuds/objectlesson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos starts wearing dresses, and Jay starts losing his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story happened because I've been wanting to write a story that deals with genderqueerness and cross dressing for awhile now, but none of my other fandoms really lent themselves well to it. I also wanted to approach it in a lighthearted, non-issue type of way, where it was a part of the story without being the central conflict. I'm all about carefree queer kids, I think Auradon is a good place to write about them. 
> 
> I also did accompanying drawings of Carlos in select outfits, because half the fun of this story was imagining him in so many cute clothes. I'll link to each at the end of the chapter. Enjoy!

Jay reads the same line in his text book at least three hundred times over, and it still doesn’t register in his brain as anything even remotely sensical. This is probably because Carlos isn’t around to poke him in the ribs with his pencil and order him to focus, or to raise his stupidly perfect eyebrows in disdain when he catches Jay doodling or daydreaming or just lying there with his face pressed against the book making distressed noises. Jay is really, really bad at homework unless Carlos is there to help. 

He huffs dramatically, leaning back in his chair, trying to see how far he can tilt on the legs until he topples off his center of balance. It’s way more fun than outlining chapters eight through ten of _Eradicating Evil: The Ethical Approach_. He’s staring at the ceiling, wondering how many spitballs it would take to write his name up there when the door flies open. Jay almost falls off his chair, righting himself clumsily as Dude comes tearing into the room, darting around his feet yipping excitedly. Jay fishes a sandwich crust out of his backpack and tosses it to the dog, gaze cutting to Carlos as he dumps his backpack onto his bed with a sigh. 

“Thank god you’re here,” Jay gripes, lobbing a wadded up and throughly ruined version of his still incomplete homework at Carlos’s head. “This book is probably written in a different language. I can’t even tell because I am so bored. Come help me.” 

Carlos reflexively snatches the paper ball out of the air before it whizzes past his head, unfolding it and frowning. “Dude, how many times have I told you to not write in pen?” 

“At least a million,” Jay admits. “Where have you been, by the way? I’ve been dying for the last _hour_ waiting for you.” 

“Not an hour, twenty five minutes,” Carlos reminds him, tapping the alarm clock on his bedside table before scooping Dude up off the floor and carrying him like a baby as he plops down in the empty chair next to Jay. “I was at Evie’s. She was putting the final touches on the skirt she made me, it’s all hemmed and ready to go now.” Predictably, his eyes light up in a way that’s kind of terrifying, and he smiles slyly. “You wanna see? It looks great.” 

Jay’s stomach does a funny, not entirely unexpected thing when Carlos mentions the skirt. It’s the same thing this stomach has been doing ever since Evie started making a skirt for Carlos in the first place, this obnoxious, clenching flip of fearful anticipation. It’s a slightly more intense and painful version of the flip his stomach does in Carlos’s presence close thousand times a day, the flip he had almost, _almost_ gotten used to. Jay does not doubt that the skirt does, indeed, look great. That’s kind of the problem. He wants to nod encouragingly, but instead he makes a face. “Are you really gonna _wear that to school_?” he asks. 

Carlos has already vaulted off his chair and to the bed, where he tugs a black pleated skirt out of his backpack. It’s made out of something shiny, matte vinyl or synthetic leather, and Jay is already imagining it swishing around Carlos’s bony knees and feeling kind of sick over it. Carlos holds the skirt up to his waist and smiles dreamily, assuring Jay, “Abso-fucking-lutely. I’ve been wanting to wear dresses since I was a kid, you know that. Now my mom isn’t here to tell me I can’t, so I can do whatever I want.” 

He spins on the ball of his foot, heading to the closet so he can hang the skirt up. Jay watches him, very relieved he’s not going to model it for him in this moment, because it’s not something he feels very prepared to deal with. “Ok,” mumbles, hiding his face. “Just, like, aren’t you worried people are gonna make fun of you?” 

Carlos shrugs. “Bullying here is way more tolerable than it was on the Island, what are they gonna do to me? Call me gay? Big deal.” He grins, lugging his books and binder over to the table and dropping them with a resounding smack next to Jay’s. “I’m not too concerned about it.” 

Jay has nothing to say, because Carlos is right. No one is going to throw rotten fruit at him or trip him or beat the shit out of him for dressing like that here. The worst that could happen is that he might get some dirty looks, which is basically nothing compared to the torment Jay witnessed back on the Isle. Jay’s fresh out of believable excuses for why Carlos shouldn’t wear the skirt, which forces him to address the _real_ reason he doesn’t want it to happen: it’s inevitably going to provide him with shameful masturbation fodder for the rest of his life. 

Much to his dismay, Jay has this irritating problem where he feels urges concerning Carlos that he would normally feel around a girl. Urges to slide an arm around his waist and nuzzle against his ear, urges to protect him, comfort him, kiss him. Stuff that’s fine to imagine doing with some pretty little number in a dress, but not so fine to imagine doing to your best friend who’s also a dude. Like, Jay generally doesn’t mind feeling these things about girls because girls are _temporary_ , girls come and go, but Carlos is forever. Jay thinks it’s a pretty terrible idea to want the person he’s stuck with forever as badly as he wants Carlos. 

The skirt brings an entirely new level of complication to the issue, because if Jay feels these urges when Carlos is dressed like usual, in his sweats or board shorts or skinny jeans or tourney jersey, then what’s gonna happen when Carlos isn’t only his best friend, but _also_ a pretty little number in a dress? Jay doesn’t want to find out. He has a vivid imagination and bad impulse control. 

“Are you _still_ on chapter 8?” Carlos snaps, peering over at Jay’s open book. “You better get to work, you’ve still got two problem sets and that essay to do.”

Jay sighs, nodding, reaching out and jabbing Carlos firmly in the ribs with his elbow, making him wince and grumble and wrinkle his nose up in this irritatingly cute way. “Yeah, yeah,” he agrees, secretly glad Carlos is kicking him into gear, secretly elbowing him just so that their skin will touch, secretly hoping the skirt will just _go away_ in the meantime.

\---

Of course, the skirt does not go away. Two days later, Jay comes back from his last class to find Carlos sitting on the floor of their room with a bowl of water, a bottle of shaving cream, and a pink, disposable daisy razor in hand. Jay stands stupid and silent and horrified in the doorway, staring as Carlos lathers up his left leg, then drags the razor from his ankle to his knee in a single, elegant swipe.

Jay feels like he’s just walked in on Carlos _naked,_ his cheeks heating up as he rips his eyes away, making as much noise as humanly possible as he lets himself in, hoping that Carlos will notice him and get embarrassed and take his figuratively naked self into the bathroom so Jay doesn’t have to feel like he’s on a roller coaster anymore. 

Unfortunately, Carlos doesn’t bat an eye. “Hey man,” he says, rinsing of the head of the razor before inspecting it, picking a few stray hairs out of the blades. Dude, who’s curled up on the floor beside him, sniffs his lathered up leg curiously.

“What are you doing?” Jay asks, voice coming out a little more sharp and accusatory than he means for it to be. 

Carlos doesn’t seem to notice the questionable tone, he just continues going about his business, drawing the razor over his calf, his knee, the narrowest part of his thigh. “Shaving my legs. I figure if I’m gonna wear a skirt then my calves better look smooth, right? It would look kind of stupid if I was all hairy.” 

Jay swallows thickly. He doesn’t think Carlos would look stupid, no matter what his calf-hair is doing. “Um,” he says, trying very hard to get the image of Carlos’s pale, newly-smooth skin out of his head. Something about this whole ritual is unspeakably vulnerable, confusing and stomach-turning and raw. He doesn’t want to think about it for another second so he turns away abruptly and blurts, “why aren’t you shaving in the _shower?_ ” 

“I tried, but it was too steamy and wet and the water kept dissolving the shaving cream. I have no idea how girls do it dude, they make it look easy but its not at all, they’re probably magical or something.” 

Jay gulps, tearing his gaze away again, hating how dizzy it makes him to see strips of Carlos’s skin as he reveals them gradually. It’s not like he’s never seen a dude’s calf before; he has no idea why Carlos’s look so _bare_. “Girls,” he says dumbly, rummaging around in his bag for a pen so that he can have something in his hand that’s not a fistful of Carlos’s clothes, hair, skin. “Speaking of girls, is this skirt thing, like, because you feel like a girl inside? No judgement, I’m just trying to figure it out,” he says hastily, internally kicking himself. He knows better than to engage Carlos in conversations about _gender_ , Carlos always ends up using all these stupid big words that don’t mean anything, and Jay always ends up confused. 

Predictably, Carlos wrinkles up his nose. “No, not really. I mean I don’t actively feel like a girl, not anymore than I actively feel like a boy. I just kind of feel like I can be both, or neither, depending upon the day. I dunno, it’s hard to explain. But really, me wanting to wear a skirt has nothing to do with it.” 

Jay looks at him blankly, wondering what on earth it would to feel like to be _both_ or _neither_ gender. “...how, exactly, does the skirt have nothing to do with this?” 

Carlos cocks his head, examining his finished leg before moving onto the the other. “Well, think about it for a second. Do clothes _really_ mean anything? How weird is it that we have differently shaped pieces of fabric we’re supposed to drape on our bodies every day, and if you’re born with an Y chromosome, you’re not supposed to wear certain fabric shapes? It’s just so stupid.” 

Jay has a headache; he _hates_ it when Carlos gets all smart and abstract and metaphysical when he talks. It’s simultaneously really annoying and really attractive. “I guess...” Jay says, doubtful. 

Carlos rinses the hair from his razor a final time before using a damp washcloth to wipe off and pat his legs dry. He smooths his palms down his calves experimentally then, looking very pleased with himself. Jay is decidedly less pleased. “Well, how about this,” Carlos offers, “Rules are lame and meant to be broken, right?” 

“Right,” Jay says, feeling very distracted by the way Carlos is still fondling his own legs. 

“Well, there are all these rules about what boys can do or wear, and what girls can, but they’re not rooted in anything _real_. So I’m just bending the rules, not trying to be a girl. Skirts shouldn’t be for just girls, skirts shouldn’t hold any intrinsic meaning. Neither should the word _girl_ for that matter,” he adds, losing Jay completely. Jay’s not even sure he knows what the word intrinsic means. 

Carlos extends one of his legs, pointing a toe elegantly in Jay’s direction. “You gotta feel this, it’s so crazy weird.” 

Jay does not want to touch Carlos’s shaved leg. Or, he _does_ want to touch it, but he’s worried that if he tries, he’ll end up going overboard and sliding his whole palm up his thigh until he finds hair again, until he gets slugged in the face for his vivid imagination and terrible impulse control. So Jay knows he shouldn't touch him, he _knows_ it’s a _terrible_ idea, but in spite of himself he reaches out, brushing his fingers down Carlos’s narrow shin, where he’s so smooth and soft and hairless it’s surreal. Jay’s stomach plummets, and he manages to snatch his hand back before he does something stupid. “It feels like a girl leg,” he says flatly. 

Carlos rolls his eyes dramatically, mumbling “Ugh,” as he scoots forward on his ass to kick Jay swiftly in the thigh with his extended foot. “You weren’t listening to anything I just said.” 

“What?! of course I was,” Jay complains, thankful for the excuse to dart a few feet away from Carlos. “It’s not _my_ fault you don’t make any fucking sense when you talk.” He jams his beanie down on his head and grabs a jacket, needing very badly to get out of this room, which smells like shaving cream and Carlos’s hair-gel and his own sharp, nervous sweat. “I’m going to the library,” he tells Carlos, shrugging on his backpack. “Good luck with your beauty routine.” 

\---

That night, Jay dreams that Carlos is playing tourney wearing Evie’s giant blue coronation dress. He’s tearing around the field in his cleats and layers and layers of cyan taffeta, and even though they’re on the same team, Jay is chasing him, reaching ahead desperately until he gets a handful of shimmering blue and drags Carlos down by it. 

He looks like a cupcake, he looks fucking _ridiculous_ and Jay is trying to tell him that, but everything changes suddenly and they’re rolling around in the grass together instead, fierce and sharp like a fight, but not exactly. Jay slides his hands under all the gauze and ruffles, up Carlos’s smooth, narrow thighs and higher still, until he’s suffocating in the the mess of blue, choking on so much fabric. 

Then he wakes up, sweating and more than half-hard in his pajamas. He rolls over miserably, wondering how on earth he’s going to survive this skirt thing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of this! In which Chad is a jerk and Jay defends Carlos's honor. Again, Illustrations at the end!

Jay wakes up because Carlos is bustling around noisily, talking to himself as Dude follows him around, nails clicking and tags jingling. Blinking through his frizzy mess of hair, Jay drags himself out of bed, still mostly asleep. “Why is it so early?” he asks, rubbing his eyes as they fall blearily upon Carlos, who is standing in front of the mirror on the inside of his closet door, scrutinizing himself. 

Very suddenly, Jay is wide awake. Carlos is wearing the skirt and _nothing else_. He’s standing on his toes, brow furrowed as he examines himself from every angle. “Oh,” Jay says stupidly, hiding his face in his shirt as he tries to sneak past Carlos and into the bathroom to compose himself. “Sorry.” 

However, Carlos spots him and spins around on his heel, causing the skirt to lift and flutter around his thighs in this way that makes Jay feel like he should probably sit down. “Good, you’re awake,” Carlos says, sashaying over to Jay, chest looking especially naked and especially pale next to the stark black of his skirt. “I need help deciding what shirt to wear with this. Any objective opinions?” He puts his hands on his waist, eyes locked with Jay’s expectantly. 

“Um...” Jay says, slumping onto the foot of his bed and swallowing, mouth suddenly very dry. He wonders how he can possibly offer an objective opinion when his feelings concerning Carlos are anything _but_ objective. He wonders how many freckles there are on Carlos’s sternum, and wills himself to refrain from counting. “I don’t know? I don’t think I’m the best guy to be giving fashion advice anyway” 

Carlos shrugs. “I dunno dude, can I just show you some options? You can veto the ones that look weird.” 

Jay nods weakly, fairly certain he somehow died in his sleep and woke up in hell. 

\---

With Jay’s grudging help, Carlos eventually decides on a loose-fitting white tank-top, which he crops the bottom off with scissors because it apparently doesn’t look good tucked in. Jay has no idea, every single thing Carlos tries on for him looks good in his opinion, so good he feels high and dizzy and obnoxiously turned on by the time he makes it to class. 

Carlos wears a pair of high-top sneakers with his ensemble, along with his usual patched up leather jacket in his mother’s colors. The finished product is surprisingly not unlike his usual outfits: stark, urban, vaguely punk, mostly monochromatic with splashes of cherry red here and there. The only big change is that he’s showing significantly more leg than usual, and he’s _carrying_ himself different, kind of prancey and smiley and sassy. That alone is enough to fuck with Jay’s head, so coupled with the three extra inches of smooth, shaved thigh, he kind of feels like he’s going to throw up. 

When Evie sees Carlos in the halls, she shrieks and runs to him at full force, nearly tackling him once she gets close enough, squeezing him so tight his breath comes out wheezy and strangled. “You. Look. _So_. Amazing!” She tells him when she finally lets go, hands clapped over her mouth. “Doesn’t he Jay? Doesn’t he look positively _fierce?”_

Jay’s stomach plummets but he tries hard to bluff, to look normal. “Totally,” he says, nodding. “You did a great job with the skirt, E.” 

She whisks a hand through the air, shaking her head. “Only because Carlos is the perfect model. I’m making a whole collection for him of things I wish I could wear but can’t because my hips are too wide or my boobs are too big. It’s gonna be fab-u-lous!”

Jay’s heart sinks into the pit of his stomach. “Oh yeah? Like what?” He can’t imagine any clothes that Evie would deem too small for her boobs, which she doesn’t appear to have a problem showing off.

“Hmmm well some of those tank tops with the sleeves cut out that look so good on flat-chested girls...some layery black dresses in a sheer fabric since Carlos’s nipples aren’t illegal...some mid-calf drapey-skirts, the ones that make me look like a dowdy pear.”

“What?! nothing could make you look like a dowdy pear Evie,” Carlos assures her. “But thank you so much for dressing me up. I really appreciate it, I’m so excited to start actually expanding my wardrobe now that my mom isn’t around to make sure I never look prettier than her,” Carlos says, hugging Evie tight and beaming, then twirling around in a neat pirouette so the skirt fans out. “I love this one, so I know the rest will be great, too.” 

Jay is silent, still very hung up on vast injustice of Carlos’s nipples, and how they very well _should_ be illegal. It would make his life a lot easier if they were.

\---

The whole school day, no one says anything mean of derogatory to Carlos at all. In fact, nearly everyone compliments him, offers him a high-five, or blatantly checks him out. At lunch, Jay overhears Jane and her group of friends tittering about how _cute_ he looks and how _they_ wish they looked as good in high-waisted things. It’s completely barf-worthy. 

It isn’t until they’re in the locker-room changing into their tourney jerseys for practice that Jay has the opportunity to punch someone for giving a Carlos a hard time, and even then it’s only Chad, who gives Carlos a hard time _anyway,_ no matter what he’s wearing. 

“Hey De-Vil, nice skirt,” he crows, leaning against his locker in this position he clearly thinks makes his shoulders look broader. “Did you skin a puppy to make it?” 

“Chad,” Ben warns, wadding up a dirty sock and tossing it at Chad. “Don’t even think about it.” 

Usually, that was the end of Chad’s taunting. He’s afraid of Ben and Carlos doesn’t care enough about his opinion to really engage him, but since adopting Dude, puppy-skinning has become an especially sore subject to bring up in Carlos’s presence. So instead of his usual eye-roll and dismissive jab, Carlos slams his locker hard and stomps up to Chad, eyes narrowed. “No, but i’ll skin a douche-bag to for a matching purse, want to volunteer?” he snaps. Jay watches closely from the sidelines, wondering if this is one he’s gonna have to step in for.

Chad and Carlos stand inches apart, both of their faces flushed, jaws set tight. Then, a nasty smile slides across Chad’s face, and he pokes Carlos in the chest with his index finger. “So bitchy. Are you on your period or something?” 

Jay is between them in two seconds flat, swinging at Chad’s jaw just as Chad ducks out of the way, fist clipping the edge of a locker door instead. Ben leaps into action, grabbing Jay’s arm and wrestling him back, glaring at Chad all the while. “ _Talk_ before you punch, Jay, remember,” he says, voice slow and even and patronizing, like he’s talking to a child. “And you,” he snaps at Chad. “ _No_ one gives a shit about how fragile your masculinity is. Coach is gonna hear about this.” 

Forever impressed with Ben’s ability to diffuse situations with nothing but _words_ and his pretty-boy face, Jay turns to Carlos, eyes climbing up him, checking for damage even though he _knows_ there was no contact. He eyes linger stupidly on the careful pleats of his skirt, and he blinks. “Are you ok?” 

Carlos shrugs, toeing off his shoes. “Yeah, Im fine. I don’t need you _defending my honor_ every time Chad talks shit, ok?” Then he reaches out and grabs Jay’s wrist, inspecting his knuckles, which are somewhat pink and swollen from their impact against the locker. “Ouch,” he says, grinning. “You got it worse than I did.” 

“Sorry,” Jay mumbles, snatching his hand back. 

“Nah, it’s fine. It’s cute, it’s like you still think I’m the Isle’s skinniest twelve year old or something.” Carlos pulls his shirt over his head in favor of his Jersey, and Jay whips away, wishing that he still thought of Carlos as the Isle’s skinniest twelve year old, wishing his stupid streak of protectiveness was less complicated than it actually was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carlos in his skirt here: http://phoenixmendozaart.tumblr.com/post/134540018680/the-lady-is-a-vamp-chapter-two-is-up


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of Jay pining miserably. He reminds me Tony Curtis in Some Like it Hot this whole story, but especially in this chapter. Carlos makes a good Marylin Monroe, I think. Enjoys! As always, illustrations at the end.

After the initial debut, Carlos works the skirt into his wardrobe easily, along with another quick one Evie whips up for him, which is similarly black but longer and less shiny, more of a kilt-sack thing than a skirt. He sometimes wears it over pants or leggings, other times not. Jay realizes that it must not be the extra inches of leg-skin that are slowly murdering him, because this skirt isn’t any easier for him to look at than the last one and it hangs down almost past Carlos’s knees. 

In addition to the new skirt, Carlos also starts incorporating other subtle changes to his look, expanding his formerly limited color palette to include colors his mother would have fainted to see him in, gold and turquoise and most recently, a deep, plum purple that looks so absurdly good Jay fantasizes about burning every article of clothing Carlos owns in this color. Most notably, however, Carlos also starts wearing _make-up_. 

Jay thought the skirts were bad, but the eyeliner is way, way worse. Carlos already has the world’s biggest and darkest eyes, so lining them in a smudgy ring of additional darkness makes them practically lethal. Jay feels like he can’t even _look_ at Carlos when he wears eyeliner, but also struggles tremendously to _stop_ looking at him. The only solution in this case is to aggressively avoid him, lest he get eternally sucked into the horrible, black-coffee-hot-cocoa-tar-pit black of Carlos’s eyeliner eyes. 

There’s no real consistency or pattern to when or what outfit Carlos is gonna wear makeup with. He wears his skirts with no make up at all sometimes, and mascara and shadow with his tourney jersey other times, so Jay is never really safe. More than once Jay finds Carlos in their room wearing sweats and a baggy old shirt and looking completely innocuous when his back is turned, until he swivels around and Jay gets bowled over by the surprise attack make-up. It’s totally unfair. Jay’s gonna develop a heart condition if he keeps this up. 

\---

Things reach a boiling point when Carlos also starts wearing _lipstick_ , which is a whole new level of cruel. As if Jay needs more reason to inappropriately focus on Carlos’s mouth when they’re talking. The first time it happens, Jay arrives at their lunch table feeling pretty good about himself. He’s just managed to score Audrey’s number, and although it’s likely going to be a short lived thing if a thing at all, at least he has a girl he can talk about and take out on a date or two on some night Carlos is at Evie’s getting fitted for a million more garments Jay will want to burn. 

He plops down next to Mal, eyes falling across the table where Carlos is sitting, scratching Dude on the ears scrolling through something on his laptop. Jay forgets about Audrey all together. He stares. He blinks. He tries to stop staring; he tries to stop blinking, but fails spectacularly at both attempts. 

“Pretty, huh?” Evie says, waggling her eyebrows, catching him in the act. 

He glares at her for a second before recovering, slouching back along the bench and trying to look as nonchalant and normal as possible. “Jeez Carlos, what’s next? False eyelashes?” 

Carlos flicks his eyes up to him for a second, then shrugs. “Dunno, maybe.” Then he puckers his bright, painted, poison-apple-red lips up like he’s gonna give Jay a kiss. “What do you think? Too bright? I might go for something more vampy next time, dunno.”

Jay notices that there’s a smudge of that fresh-blood red on the mouth of Carlos’s open milk carton, and a crazy sort of feeling comes over him, an unbearable itchiness to his fingers, that terrible impulse control moving his hand beyond his will. Beyond his better judgement, Jay reaches across the table and smears Carlos’s lipstick with his thumb, leaving a lewd streak or waxy red down his chin. “Do you _want_ Chad to beat you up?” he asks, sucking the lipstick off his thumb reflexively and hating himself the instant he does it. 

If Carlos even notices he doesn’t let on, because before Jay can get another taunt out Carlos is vaulting over the table, sending a paper plate of sloppy joe flying and making Evie shriek. He might be wearing a skirt and lipstick, but he looks very, very much like a boy as he tackles Jay, dragging him off the bench and landing on top of him with a _thwump_. “You’re such a shit,” he tells Jay, eyes narrowed even though he’s laughing, wrestling rough but with no real intent or malice. “You fucked up my face, now I’m gonna have to fix it.” 

Jay overpowers him eventually, throwing him off and swinging on top, straddling his narrow hips and raking his palm through Carlos’s hair until it’s rucked up and in a hundred different directions. “You’re gonna have to fix your hair, too,” Jay tells him, breathless and half-hard, shifting his hips off Carlos’s to keep him from feeling the gathering heat and thickness. “I hope the I-lose-fights look is in this season.” 

Carlos snickers, batting at him uselessly until he turns his head and wipes the rest of his lipstick all over Jay’s wrist in a flash of unintentional brilliance. Horrified by the sudden hot wet spread of Carlos’s mouth on his arm, Jay rolls off, feigning disgust, wiping the lipstick smudges all over the grass frantically. “Ew, dude, this stuff is greasy and never comes off,” he gripes. “I’ve kissed enough girls to know,” he adds, cringing internally, well aware of how stupid and unnecessary a thing it is to say. 

\--- 

From then on, Jay temporarily thwarts the lipstick problem by deliberately rubbing it all over Carlos’s face every time he tries to wear it. It turns into a game, where Carlos darts away and slaps Jay’s hand away the first few advances, but eventually and inevitably succumbs to being put in a headlock with one arm while Jay messes up his mouth with the other. Jay’s not entirely sure if he’s solving the problem or making it worse, but at least it gives him somewhere to channel his imagination and impulse problems when he’s finding Carlos especially unbearable. 

Unfortunately, it’s a short lived solution (or not) because Evie ends up concocting unsmearable lipstick for Carlos. They’re all in the girls’ room, Mal and Jay working half-heartedly on a group project together while Evie, Dude, and Carlos sit on the floor, mixing potions and talking make-up. “Ok, I think this should work,” she mumbles, unscrewing the cap to the tube of lipstick. “It goes on liquid, dries as a matte. It’s that deep purple you look so good in,” she grins, holding his chin in her fingers while she carefully paints his lips with the little wand.

Jay makes a face, wishing Evie also didn’t think that was Carlos’s best color so she would quit putting him in it. Mal notices his grimace and nudges his foot under the table. “What, too much make-over talk for you?” 

“He’s just mad he won’t be able to fuck this lipstick up,” Carlos calls from the floor, voice muffled because Evie is still making minor touch-ups with the lipstick, and she’s squishing his mouth half-shut. “I’m gonna look flawless and there’s nothing he can do about it.” 

Evie lets him go. “Ok, you’re done. Go look at yourself!” 

Carlos and Dude trot off to the mirror, and in spite of himself Jay cranes his neck around to watch. Carlos does, indeed, look flawless, lips dark and peaked and a little overdrawn because Evie loves drama. He touches them very lightly with the tip of his index finger, which comes back unstained. “Wow. Impressive.” 

Evie peers over his shoulder at his reflection, admiring her handiwork with a complacent smirk. “Really try to smudge it. It’s kiss proof and everything, watch.” She spins Carlos around and pecks him chastely on the mouth to demonstrate, pulling back with her own lips perfectly unmarred. “Ta-dah! Pretty cool magic, huh? Jay, come test it out.” 

Jay flushes so deeply it feels like he’s burning up, so deeply he has to hide his face in his book to keep Mal from eyeing him suspiciously. “I’m not gonna _kiss_ Carlos,” he says gruffly, pretending that he’s very very absorbed in his reading. 

“I meant _with your finger_ , stupid,” Evie tells him. “Like you always do? I don’t think Audrey would appreciate you kissing someone else very much.” 

Jay recovers quickly, flipping his hair from one shoulder to another and shrugging, trying to remember what he’s told his friends about Audrey, who he’s not actually dating at all, at least not since Wednesday when she told him he “should stop staring” at Carlos and that she “didn’t appreciate judgement concerning gender expression,” whatever that meant. However, he’s having a very hard time thinking about Audrey right now, because pretty much all he can think about badly he wants to smear Carlos’s supposedly unsmearable lipstick. 

Carlos is leaning into his face, lips puckered defiantly. “Try me.” 

Willing his fingers not to shake, Jay reaches out and brushes them across Carlos’s lips, which feel warm, painted, but not damp like they usually are when he’s wearing lipstick. Jay frowns, and tries again, this time with more pressure, with his thumb, with the whole back of his hand. “Damn” he says, wondering how long is too long when it comes to touching one’s best friend’s mouth in a setting where it’s apparently not weird. “I guess it’s Jay-proof.” 

Carlos pumps his fist, then leaps at Evie, kissing her cheek without leaving a mark. They high-five and Jay turns back to Mal, whose eyebrows are raised so dramatically they nearly disappear into her hairline. “Why do _you_ look like someone killed your puppy?” she asks, eyes narrowing. 

Jay shrugs, thumbing through his book. “Audrey and I kind of broke up a few days ago,” he says, always glad for convenient if irrelevant truths. 

“Ah,” Mal says before her mouth turns into a flat line. She doesn’t look at all convinced. 

\---  
It gets to the point that even if Carlos dresses exactly how he used to, tri-color and sporty and make-up free, Jay’s so haunted by his dresses and his mascara that he still pictures him that way, under his regular clothes. He doesn’t want it to be such a big deal, it just _is._

After tourney practice one day, Carlos is in sweat-pants and a black hoodie, his cheeks flushed from the shower and his hair damp and unstyled while he tosses a ball across the room for Dude, and _all Jay can think about_ is how his legs are all smooth and shaven under those sweats. He wonders when his urges around Carlos stopped being urges and evolved into just his general state of being. He wonders if this is what it’s like to be in love with someone, and if it is, why people act like that’s a good thing to be. 

Another day Carlos is wearing a jumpsuit thing Evie made him out of a gauzy black fabric that is nearly translucent in certain lights, and even though it’s technically not a dress or a skirt or anything that could be referred to with certainty as girl’s clothes, it still makes Jay all weird and hot-cheeked and full of butterflies. They’re walking down the hall together on their way to class when it occurs to Jay that literally _none_ of Carlos’s stupid shaven leg-skin is showing right now, but Jay _knows_ it’s under those half-baggy, half-clinging jumpsuit pants. 

Jay decides that his last remaining hope for sanity is to somehow convince Carlos to grow his leg hair back. This would leave a few days out of each week when he was dressed exactly how he used to back on the Isle, no make up and no skirts and plenty of leg hair. It seems like a good plan, so Jay starts thinking of ways to enact it. It can’t be that hard, Carlos is very concerned with “subverting gender” and “smashing roles” and Jay thinks it’s pretty silly and hypocritical of him that he thinks it’s radical and daring to wear skirts, only if his legs could still be mistaken for a girl’s legs if someone wasn’t looking at the rest of him. 

They’re in their room getting ready for bed, Jay already tucked under the covers while Carlos moves around the room doing mundane shit, brushing his teeth and petting Dude and packing his book bag for tomorrow. It’s then that Jay decides to unleash the brilliant argument he’s been constructing for the last seven hours. “Hey Carlos,” he says, spooning his pillow and watching Carlos carefully as he spits a mouthful of toothpaste into the sink. “Why do you shave your legs again?” 

Carlos rinses his mouth, rolling his eyes at Jay in the mirror. “Because I wear dresses,” he reminds him. 

“Is that some kind of _rule?_ ”Jay says gleefully. “That you can only wear dresses if you shave your legs?” 

“What? Yeah? I mean, I guess not, It’s kind of stupid, actually...” Carlos starts, a look dawning on his face that suggests he might be realizing there’s a flaw in his logic. 

“Right? I mean, how weird is it that the length of dead protein strands on our legs matters with what shape of fabric we’re draping on our bodies?” Jay delivers it perfectly, innocent-sounding and in Carlos’s own words, so that it just seems like some idiot’s observation instead of a some idiot’s manipulative master plan. 

Carlos sits down on his bed, face contemplative and a little self-effacing. “Huh. You’re totally right. I guess my compulsion to shave is a little problematic.” 

Jay wants to kick the air in triumph. “Problematic” is one of many words Carlos has started using in excess since they moved to Auradon and chose good, and although Jay doesn’t exactly understand its nuance, he does know Carlos usually uses it before he’s about to make some big change in his behavior, or when he’s expecting a big change in someone else’s behavior. Jay hopes that the behavior alteration that’s in store for him involves leg hair. 

Sure enough, following this conversation, Carlos becomes significantly less dedicated to making sure his legs are baby-smooth before he wears a skirt or dress. He lets his stubble grow out, and although he occasionally shaves “when he feels like it,” it definitely stops being a ritual Jay has to endure walking in on every couple of days, feeling like he’s just seen Carlos doing something vulnerable and private. 

However, that is the extent of Jay’s good fortune, because although Jay assures himself on multiple occasions that if he were to draw his hand up Carlos’s calf, it would be stubble-rough and prickly, Carlos’s legs do not stop being a point of obsession for him, and he still fantasizes about drawing his hand up Carlos’s calf, which is a huge problem. It’s like no matter how much hair they have on them, Jay can still imagine exactly what they look like under his his sweatpants or jeans or leggings or whatever. In short, Jay continues to think about Carlos naked, regardless of how much skin he’s showing, and regardless of how much hair is on that skin. 

And following that revelation, Jay realizes that this is indeed what it means to be in love with somebody, and still wonders why people act like that’s a good thing to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea how to draw dropcrotch sweatpants ;) http://phoenixmendozaart.tumblr.com/post/135395797555/carlos-in-make-up-and-a-drop-crotch-sweatpants


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something finally happens!!!

For spring break, Ben graciously invites them all to come stay at his parents’ palace in the city. Eager for a chance to show off his new wardrobe outside the safe, nuclear bubble that’s Auradon prep, Carlos packs almost entirely new clothes that Evie’s made for him, along with his make-up bag and an absurd pair of platform boots Mal magicked up for him out of some old tennis shoes. 

Jay tries very hard to be very supportive. After all, it _does_ make him happy that Carlos is finally coming to his own, figuring out his own style and his own gender identity or whatever, outside of his mother’s stifling, jealous judgement. It makes him happy to see Carlos all excited about it, even if it’s at the expense of his own sanity. It’s fine. He’ll live. 

On their first night off campus, Ben gives them a comprehensive tour of the city, all its glittering glass buildings and shockingly clean streets, so much brighter and clearer and newer than the Isle. Carlos is all dolled up in a plum and black dress, one that’s tight across the chest before it fans out into what Jay can only describe as a poof. It’s a pretty dress, and Carlos looks _good_ stared at so much. Actually, Carlos is the one getting stared at, but Jay feels the heat of all those gazes, too, and it isn’t just because he’s always standing too close to Carlos. It’s because he can _tell_ people are pairing them off together in their heads.

Ben and Mal are obviously and observably a couple, and Evie is well behind the group, too busy cooing over every window display and snapping selfies in front of of public art and monuments to keep up with the rest of them. This results in Jay and Carlos traveling together as a unit of sorts. 

It doesn’t help that Carlos has _no_ concern for the fact that he isn’t swaddled in the unconditional acceptance of a fancy, tolerance-preaching prep-school right now. He’s acting exactly like he does when they’re on campus: shoving Jay whenever he says something stupid, threading his arm through Jay’s to drag him off to look at something, hopping on Jay’s back and stretching his fingers up to try and touch the cables for the Auradon trolley cars whenever they stop at a street corner. It’s way too much physical contact for the real world, and Carlos might not notice the change in how they’re being perceived, but Jay definitely does. His skin is crawling with all the judgmental or curious or envious gazes, all the people who’re thinking _fucking queers_ or _huh, crazy outfit_ or _s that a boy or a girl?_ or _what a cute couple!_

By the time they make it to dinner, countless people have catcalled Carlos, another handful have shouted some backhanded compliment or outright slur at him, and _four_ have mistaken him for Jay’s significant other. The worst part about all of this is that Carlos doesn’t even _care_ , in fact Jay’s not even sure he _notices_. When Jay brings it up to Mal, she only shrugs and says, “Welcome to the big city. At least we’re not on the Island anymore, he’d be eaten alive already.” 

As they wait for their food, everyone chatters excitedly about the day except for Jay, who is uncharacteristically quiet. Mal keeps shooting him weird looks, her eyes narrowed and flashing, but she doesn’t say anything. He makes himself eat dinner when it arrives, spectacular and steaming and very obviously expensive. Jay might be distressed, but he lived poor and hungry for too long to turn down a meal like this. 

Ben pays the bill and Jay sneaks off to the bathroom to do some deep breathing or something when a waitress stops him, a hand on his arm. “Your girlfriend’s dress is so cute! Do you know where she got it?” 

He looks hastily over his shoulder at his table of friends, grimacing, unsure whether it’s Evie’s dress or Carlos’s dress that’s getting complimented. He is sitting between them, so theoretically she could be referring to either. “I don’t have a girlfriend,” he says weakly, arms crossed tight across his chest. “But, um, the blue-haired girl made all the dresses at that table. So you can ask her.” 

“Thanks!” she chirps, and he nods curtly, stealing away to the bathroom, stupidly hoping that Evie is going to get a compliment on her dress as well as her handiwork. 

Jay pees and rinses his face with cold water two hundred times and pats himself dry with a paper towel before psyching himself to go back out there. “Get it together man,” he tells his reflection in the mirror, pointing at himself firmly and glaring. “Get it together.” 

His speech is a failed one, however, because he does not feel very together at all when the waitress grabs him on his way out and apologizes profusely. “I’m so sorry, I meant your _boyfriend,_ ” she says. “The atmospheric lighting in here, I couldn’t see very well. My bad! Such a cute dress though, and a cute kid, you’re a lucky guy.” 

Jay can’t even _speak_ , so he just nods awkwardly, wondering how many more people in Auradon are going to remind him that his best friend is insufferably pretty, and also, only his best friend. 

\---

Stuffed full of food and dessert, the group heads down the street towards the city center as night falls, Ben and Mal holding hands and canoodling, Evie and Carlos singing Let it Go at full volume, wheezing and hiccuping with laughter between each verse. Jay is glad to be walking on his own for a moment, a few feet ahead of the rest where no one will look at him and wonder if he and Carlos are an item. It feels good, and he’s starting to relax, when some Chad-look alike with a blonde pompadour and absurd, silver wing-tip shoes screams, “Elsa! Anna! Wanna give each other a little kiss for us?” Then he and his friends explode into stupid guffaws. 

Jay just stands there for a moment, slack-jawed and baffled that three rich-looking brats no older than him are gonna be the ones who actually start shit tonight. Their ringleader makes a lewd gesture with his fingers and tongue, and Jay feels his hands start to creep into fists. 

“Ignore them,” Ben suggests, but Evie has already spun around to give them a piece of her mind, or possibly a face-full of her heavy, silver studded handbag. She struts up to the boys, glaring, Carlos not far behind her. 

“Oh,” one of them says, making a face. “I didn’t realize, one is a _fag_ , not a princess.”

Evie wallops him in the face with her purse, and immediately a torrent of blood pours out his nose. Ben and Mal are instantly useless because Ben has a severe blood phobia and is doubled over trying not to pass out, and Mal is helping him up, dragging him across the sidewalk so that he doesn’t block foot traffic. The two blonde fancy guys who aren’t bleeding are at least smart enough to know they can’t hit a girl, or else they can tell Evie’s clearly going to win whatever fight she’s started, so after exchanging a quick glance, they both pounce on Carlos. 

Jay doesn’t even know what happens. Something snaps, and It’s just like being back on the Island: a flurry of fists and kicks and elbows and adrenaline. His knuckles are stinging and there’s the faint taste of copper in his mouth, but it all feels so _good_ , so familiar. He’s not planning on stopping anytime soon but then Evie is pulling him back hard by his belt, scolding “Jay! Jay, that’s enough, that kind of thing is illegal here, we’ve got to move!” 

He suddenly remembers where he is, heart pounding and head aching. They’ve gathered a small crowd of passersby, just standing there staring at them with their hands clasped over their mouths, staring at the three blonde guys in newly ripped and blood-spattered clothes dragging themselves around on the pavement on all fours, crying and whining and talking about their rich daddies who are gonna sue. Jay looks around wildly, noticing that Mal, Ben, and Carlos are all nowhere to be seen. “Split up,” Evie hisses to him, and before he has time to nod in agreement, she’s off, sprinting up the sidewalk in her heels, wiping the blood from her purse on her dress like it’s nothing. 

Jay follows suit, tearing away down the street, turning at every corner and trying to lose himself momentarily in the big crowds of pedestrians at cross walks, trying to blend in. After awhile he finds a safe looking alley behind a row of restaurants, nothing but weeds and dumpsters and other good stuff to hide behind, a place to lay low for awhile. He creeps down it in the dark, and tucked away behind a trash can, he finds Carlos shivering in his dress, looking very disgruntled and very cold. 

“Hey!” Jay says brightly, catching up to him, _so_ incredibly relieved to see him that he doesn’t even care about how good his legs look sticking out awkwardly from beneath the poof of the dress. “I lost the others, but I guess we’ll find them again when stuff dies down out there. You ok?” 

Much to his surprise, Carlos reaches for him and shoves him, hard. “What the hell was that?” he snarls. 

Jay backs up slowly, hurt and confused and still winded from his impromptu run. “What do you mean? Did you hear those guys, they were total assholes and they called you a _fag_ , I couldn’t just--”

“I am a fag!” Carlos reminds him, eyes flashing. “Getting called names is just one of the side effects of dressing how I want to, and it’s one I’m willing to put up with, ok? I don’t _need_ you jumping into defend me every time someone’s a homophobic shit, I don’t _want_ you starting fights on my behalf! Why are you _so_ obbsessed with protecting me when I don’t need protection?!” Carlos yells, eye-make up smudged, face flushed as he stomps around the alley in his high-tops. Jay watches him, feeling choked to silence by the rapid, terrified thud of his heart until Carlos adds, “The way I dress has _nothing_ to do with you Jay!”

Then Jay gets mad, because Carlos is _wrong_ about that. “Yes it _does_ , dude. Do you know how many times I’ve been asked if you were my girlfriend tonight?” he snaps. 

“Who cares?!” Carlos shouts, throwing his hands up in the air. “Why aren’t you secure enough with yourself to _deal_ with that?” 

Jay shakes his head fiercely, because Carlos doesn’t _get_ it. Carlos can’t, because Carlos isn’t in love and he doesn’t know how _shitty_ a condition that is to be in, he doesn’t now how painful or constant or maddening it is. “Five!” Jay tells him, pointing at Carlos before jabbing his chest with his index finger. “Five people have asked me that today, do you know how much that sucks for me?!” 

Carlos rolls his eyes dramatically, then holds his own face in his hands, so frustrated he’s sweating his eye makeup off in rivulets. Or at least Jay _thinks_ it’s sweat; it’s hard to tell under the hazy, back-alley street lamps. “Sucks for _you_? Wow, poor Jay, I’m _so_ sorry you have a faggot best friend who likes to wear dresses, I’m sorry it’s so-oooo hard to be seen in public with him,” Carlos says scathingly, crossing his arms over his chest and popping his hip out, eyes narrowed. 

Jay stops for a second, his anger flickering into something else. “That’s not why it sucks, Carlos,” he mumbles, cradling his head and pacing across the alley, wanting badly to run but knowing there’s nowhere to run to, no way to escape or rid himself this stupid, huge feeling that chokes him to death every day, knowing there’s nothing Carlos can do to his legs or his wardrobe or his lips to make himself any less irresistible. Jay is just fucked. “That’s not it at all.”

“Then _why_? Why do you even _care_ if people think I’m your girlfriend?!”

Jay feels something pure and wild rupture irreparably in his chest. “ _Because you’re not_!” he screams, pulse beyond frantic and throat hoarse. He wants to shut up but he can’t; he has very bad impulse control after all and a dam inside him has just broken, allowing every stupid shameful thing to come spilling out into the night. “You’re _not_ and all I ever do anymore is think about how badly I wish you were, ok?” Then, exhausted, he slumps against the damp brick wall of the alley, and tugs his beanie off so he can use it to cover his face. “Fuck.” he groans, voice muffled to near nothingness by the fabric. He sits there, and waits for the world to end. 

Carlos is quiet for a long time. Jay can’t hear anything but his own shallow breath and the far-away seeming din of the city, traffic and laughter and car horns. Eventually, Carlos takes a few steps forward, his footfalls echoing on the pavement. “You want me to be your girlfriend?” he asks very softly, like he’s not sure he heard Jay correctly. 

Jay inhales deeply, glad he has a hat on his face so he doesn’t have to look at Carlos in his stupid eye make up and stupid dress right now. “Yeah,” he admits, figuring he might as well really commit to making the most important friendship in his life irrevocably weird and awkward since he’s already taken the first step. “Or boyfriend, or whatever. I don’t care. However you are.” 

After a moment he feels Carlos lean against the wall beside him, a few inches away. He can feel the nervous thrum of energy radiating from him in waves, warm and scary and unreadable. He takes another shuddering breath and adds, “I know it’s really weird. You don’t even have to say anything, we can just pretend it didn’t happen and go back to being how we were and I’ll work on getting rid of it and never, ever talking about it ag--”

“Jay,” Carlos says, cold fingers brushing unexpectedly against Jay’s wrist and making him jump. “Stop. I want to talk about it.” 

“I kind of don’t,”Jay says honestly, burying his face in his hands. He can feel Carlos’s eyes all over him, critical and searching and something else, something terrifying. Part of him wants to peer out from under his hat to see what it is, but it also seems like a really awful idea, given how especially dismal his already shitty impulse control has been tonight. 

A cold pang of surprise spikes through Jay’s chest when Carlos _laughs_ a little bit, this half-broken, half-scared kind of laugh. “Wow. You’re not messing with me. I thought maybe you were, that this was some thief trick or something, and...” he trails off, swallowing thickly. 

That gets Jay’s attention, and he crumples up his hat, looking at Carlos blearily. “What?! No. Of course not.” He blinks, trying and failing to read the strange, flickering expression on Carlos’s face. His eyes are too dark; this alley is too dark. Everything is a mess. 

He takes a deep breath and is about to start apologizing again when Carlos makes two hard, hungry fists in his jacket, and kisses him like he can’t wait another second for it. Jay stumbles for a few terrified beats of his heat, stunned by the hot slickness of Carlos’s lips before he realizes what’s happening and drags him close and flush and aching up against his body, fisting helplessly into the plum gauze of his dress, working the fabric up over his hips so he can feel the skin under it, finally, _finally._. 

Carlos bucks up against him and he ends up pressed hard into the wall, panting and gasping as they part to breathe, gazes locked and fiery and half-lidded and pupil-black. “You’re so _stupid_ sometimes,” Carlos hisses, thumping Jay against the wall, grinding their foreheads together before he’s back to biting at Jay’s lips, wild and graceless. “I’ve wanted you for so, _so_ long Jay, you could have had me whenever you wanted, all you had to do was ask,” he breathes.

Jay’s stomach won’t stop dropping; he’s messing up Carlos’s hair and drinking from his mouth and pushing needy palms up under his dress and still, still it’s not enough, not even fucking close. “God, Carlos,” he groans, touching him as much of him as he can reach, flicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth as Carlos tilts his head back to desperately inhale. “I didn’t know,” he admits, biting down his neck, wanting so badly to mark up the olive, freckled skin there until Carlos is sore and aching from his teeth. He thinks about the unsmearable lipstick, the first short, pleated skir Evie made him, the skirt that started this whole thing. So many things left to ruin. 

Jay thumbs over the tails of Carlos’s eyes, deliberately smudging his eyeliner, dragging it down his cheeks in twin trails of black as he kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him. Carlos lets out strangled laugh, and it rumbles under Jay’s lips. “I don’t know how you _couldn’t_ have known,” he mumbles, grinning so bright and flashing that Jay has to lick his teeth. “I do so much stupid shit around you. Have no self-control, couldn’t you tell how much I liked it, how much it _killed_ me whenever you messed my lipstick up? Almost didn’t want Evie to make me the permanent one, just wanted your hands on my mouth forever,” he breathes, so many terrible, messy truths spilling out between them and Jay wants to swallow every single one. 

His chest feels like it’s splitting apart, like the awe inside him is too big, too ecstatic for his body to contain. “ _Dude,_ ” he murmurs, thumbing hungrily over Carlos’s mouth. “You, _you_ , are like, _completely_ unbearable. Asking me to feel your legs and always changing in front of me and looking so _fucking sexy_  in every single thing you wear,” he’s panting hard against Carlos’s mouth, rocking his hips steadily into him, up under the dress which he’s bunched above his hips. “I’ve been going insane. Can’t believe _you_ couldn’t tell.”

Carlos is a debauched mess against the wall, head tilted back to expose the pale, freckled ripple of his throat, chest heaving wildly, eyes half-lidded. “Every single thing I wear?” he asks quietly, hands wrist deep in Jay’s hair. “Even my stupid tourney jersey?” 

“Fuck,” Jay swears, kissing Carlos so hard he elicits a pained groan, teeth in his lips. “Are you kidding me, _duh_ , I’ve thought about fucking you in your jersey _so many times_ Carlos,” he admits, stunned to be telling him these things, stunned that he was _wrong_ , wrong about everything. 

“Oh my god,” Carlos whimpers, burying his face in Jay’s neck and sucking messily, open mouthed. “You can fuck me in whatever you want when we get to the palace,” he promises, shaking as he tries to pull away, though not very convincingly. “But we should really go back, we should really find the others, they’re probably wondering what happened to you.” 

_The others_. Jay had almost entirely forgotten about them. Images and sensations from the fight come flashing back to his mind, the impact, the fury, the pavement, the blood. His knuckles suddenly sting again. He lets his breath hiss out his teeth, brow nudging against Carlos’s, hips still working him solidly into the wall. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right, totally right,” he mumbles between frantic kisses all over Carlos’s neck, face, his bare shoulders. “But this is real, right? You’re not gonna, like, _go_ anywhere if we stop for minute?” 

“Promise,” Carlos tells him, pressing one more long, lingering kiss to the wild flutter of Jay’s pulse before pushing him away with a single open palm to his chest. They stand a few agonizing inches away, Jay trying hard to not look at Carlos as he adjust his dress back over his thighs and failing, falling helplessly back in to kiss him, thinking about the waitress who called him a lucky guy, and how _right_ she had been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carlos in his fancy and also irresistible dress. http://phoenixmendozaart.tumblr.com/post/136827359040/second-to-last-chapter-of-the-lady-is-a-vamp-is


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally done! Hope you guys enjoyed it :)

They must look very suspicious when they finally reconvene with the rest of their friends, because Mal and Evie both peer at them curiously, eyes narrowed and heads cocked. Ben is mostly oblivious, but that’s nothing new. Jay’s stomach keeps flipping over and he’s still-half-hard and hot-cheeked, wondering how on earth he’s gonna appear as if the greatest thing that’s ever happened in his life _hasn’t_ actually happened. 

“So neither of you got arrested, that’s a relief,” Mal says after a few loaded seconds, her eyes climbing up Jay and landing on his face, like there’s some kind of _evidence_ smeared across it. Jay steals a glance at Carlos, suddenly worried he _was_ wearing lipstick and he was so caught up in kissing him he hadn’t even noticed the red smudged all over their mouths or something.

Carlos looks a little flushed, a little bright-eyed, a lot beautiful. His mouth _is_ swollen and pink, but there are no lipstick traces, nothing that belies what they’ve just been doing. Jay tears his eyes away, trying hard not to think about all the things he’s gonna do to that mouth when they get to the palace. 

“Sorry, everyone,” he says sheepishly, shoving his hands in his pockets and trying to look apologetic. “I kind of forgot we weren’t on the Isle for a second.” 

“Don’t,” Evie says, holding a hand up. “They deserved it. Plus, if anyone should be apologizing it’s me, I threw the first punch.” She shrugs then, like she’s not that sorry at all.

“It’s fine guys, they _did_ deserve it,” Ben agrees, wacing his arm to wave down down a carriage taxi. One arrives almost immediately, two giant, pearly-white horses pulling a silver carriage behind them clopping to the curb, heads bent and snuffling. Jay wonders if taxis just magically _appear_ for kings, if that’s what it’s like to be royalty, to grow up safe and comfortable and rich. “Just, _please_ try and remember next time, talk before you punch, ok? That’s all I’m asking,” Ben adds, holding the carriage door open for everyone. 

Evie glances at her nails, making a pouty face. “I didn’t feel like talking to them. They weren’t worth talking to.” 

The group piles into the carriage, which has two plush love seats behind the driver’s bench. Jay and Carlos both hang back awkwardly, not sure where they’re supposed to sit until Evie, Mal and Ben squeeze into the first row, leaving the very back for them. Jay’s face heats up spectacularly as Carlos slides in beside him, preserving about five inches of space between their thighs on the bench. Hiding behind his hair and pretending to adjust his shoelaces, Jay obsesses over those five inches, wanting to badly to obliterate them, to press the length of his leg against Carlos and shove him into the wall of the carriage and kiss him breathless all over again. 

The ride to the palace is kind of agonizing. Everyone is chattering about mid terms and laughing about mutual friends and teachers they hate, and Jay is trying really hard to keep up with and contribute to the conversation like he normally would, but the issue is that he can’t stop _staring_ at Carlos. He’ll start to say something and find himself awkwardly trailing off, eyes glued to the angle of Carlo’s jaw, the corner of his mouth turned up into a smile, the tilt in his wrists as he gesticulates when he talks, the way his dark roots curl into messy cowlicks at the back of of his neck. Jay just can’t _stop._

He can’t even _remember_ what he was like before this, how he talked or how he acted before Carlos kissed him. It’s like everything has changed so drastically that doing anything but _continuing_ to kiss Carlos feels like a pointless lie.He can’t remember why it’s not a good idea to just make out in favor of every other activity in the world. He’s really suffering through the injustice of it, and it’s not helping that every time he and Carlos make eye contact it’s way too intense and goes on for too long and kind of feels like plummeting off the cliff, kind of like staring into the sun.

\---

By the time they make it to the palace, Jay is in full crisis mode. Firstly, he has a boner . Secondly, somehow over the course of the carriage ride, Carlos’s leg had steadily crept closer until those five inches separating their thighs has indeed been obliterated, meaning his narrow thigh is tight against Jay’s knee, the taffeta of his dress gathered and bunching between them, riding up to reveal skin.Jay is kind of falling apart. He can’t believe this is happening, he can’t believe that soon, he’s gonna be able to scour his face on the stubble of Carlos’s legs, he’s gonna be able to lay him out and pick him apart and get under his dress, _finally_ , for good.

At least he hopes it’ll happen soon. As they walk up to the palace in a line, he starts to wonder how much longer his friends plan on hanging out, if they’re tired or if they expect him and Carlos to do anything other than lock themselves away in some swanky palace bedroom and drown in each other. He hopes they don’t. He hopes everyone else wants to go to bed as badly as he does. 

As they approach the massive palace doors, Ben is acting shy and sheepish and kind of self-effacing about the splendor, the rest of them slack-jawed and amazed. “You guys want the grand tour?” Ben asks, sounding very much like he’d rather not give it, like he’s kind of embarrassed by the whole thing but knows it’s what he’s supposed to say. “I can show you place or we can, just, hang out for a while before crashing, whatever you guys want--”

“Tour can wait until tomorrow,” Mal announces. “I’m beat, and this place is practically as big as the city, which we’ve already been walking around all day. I just wanna get off my feet.” 

Ben smiles at her, warm and relieved, and she smiles back. It’s kind of gross and starry-eyed and Jay would be resenting them for it big time if he was still wallowing in an endless swamp of self pity and unrequited love-pain like he had been only an hour or so ago. “Perfect, me too,” he chimes in, stretching. His glance flickers to Carlos, even though he doesn’t want it too, even though he’s trying _so hard_ to not stare at him every second in this blatant, hungry way. “Um, what are the sleeping arrangements gonna look like?” 

Ben shrugs. “I figured I’d let you guys decide. There are more than enough rooms for you to each have your own, or if anyone wants to room together, slumber party style, that’s cool. There are so many bedrooms...the Gold Room in the West Wing, the Stained Glass Suite by the Library, the Princess Room--”

 

Evie raises her hand. “I call the Princess Room!” 

“You got it,” Ben answers.

\---

Carlos and Jay end up in adjacent rooms joined by a shared bathroom, across the hall from the Princess Room. Ben figured it would be a good idea for everyone to be on the same hallway as his quarters, so that they can ask him how to get around rather than wandering around lost in the event they need something. Jay is pretty sure he doesn’t _need_ anything except for everyone to _go to sleep already_ , so that he can sneak into Carlos’s room, but it’s not happening as quickly as he wants to. They’re all hyper and full of adrenaline from the fight, they’re all excited to be on spring break, so everyone’s kind of sitting around on Ben’s floor, very awake and very talkative. 

Ben brings up a bottle of some fizzy, sweet, supposedly alcoholic drink for them to share, and as they pass it around, everyone gets progressively more giggly (especially Evie.) Jay can’t make himself drink much though; he already feels drunk on Carlos, drunk on this whole situation, and he doesn’t want to put anything in this stomach which might make it fizzier, more knotted up. 

“I literally _cannot_ believe there are creeps out there who want to see Elsa and Anna kiss!” Evie exclaims, brandishing the bottle like a battering ram as she gesticulates wildly, two vivid spots of pink on her cheeks. “Like, is _nothing_ sacred?” 

Everyone cracks up, and Carlos leans too close to Jay as he doubles, shoulder brushing against Jay’s forearm in a way that feels electric, dangerous. Their gazes meet for a briefest of moments, Carlos’s eyes so black and twinkling, and Jay’s heart stops. 

“I dunno, you guys haven’t _met_ Elsa and Anna. They are, like....really, _really_ close. I kind of get it. I mean, I wouldn’t be _surprised,_ ” Ben says, hiccuping, and Mal looks a little shocked. 

“Oh wow, maybe we should get Mr. King of Auradon to bed,” she says, eyes wide. “He might be saying stuff he’s gonna regret in the morning.” 

“ _I’m_ sure ready to crash,” Carlos adds, stretching. “Thanks for the amazing night Ben, and for showing us around. And not disowning us even though Jay and Evie almost killed three guys on the street.” 

Ben grins, hair disheveled as Mal steers him away. “It’s okay, they sucked,” he mumbles. Mal mouths the word _lightweight_ over her shoulder at her friends, and Evie and Carlos snicker. 

Jay’s heart is pounding too hard for him to snicker, because what he’s been waiting all night for is about to _actually happen_. Everyone clambers to their feet and files off to their respective rooms, Jay picking up the very back of the line, eyes downcast because he’s petrified of what will happen if he looks at Carlos, what will catch fire and incinerate. His hands are shaking, so he jams them into his pockets, mumbling hasty goodbyes to Ben and Mal and hugging Evie tight before slinking into his room. 

It’s a pretty spectacular room. Almost everything looks covered in a fine gold leaf, the posters of the bed, the massive chest at the foot of it, the elaborate sills of the giant bay windows, all glittering temptingly. Jay stares, the part of him that will always be a thief aching desperately like a second heartbeat. He imagines shoving his pockets full, then takes a deep breath, weirdly relieved that he doesn’t ever need to _do_ that again. He has what he wants, he has everything he’s ever wanted. _Finally_ he thinks for the hundredth time that night. 

Jay sits down on the edge of the very fancy, king-sized bed with its white canopy made from some fabric he’s pretty sure Evie has dressed Carlos in, and puts his head in his hands, suddenly very dizzy. He keeps getting flashes from the alley in his head, Carlos’s dress around his waist, Carlos’s eyes half-lidded and so black they hurt to look at, Carlos smiling like smiling could end the world. Jay takes a deep breath, sick he’s so in love. 

_In love_. It hits him in his chest like a punch, solid and heavy. He’s _so_ fucking in love with Carlos he’s half-crazy over it, splitting along a seam in chest because his ribcage feels too small to contain the terrible swell of his heart. He loves Carlos, for sure, but he has no idea what _Carlos_ is actually feeling in all of this. Sure, he likes Jay, apparently. Wants Jay to fuck him in his tourney jersey, apparently. Neither of which are things Jay is _complaining_ about. But he might be experiencing the tiniest lick of panic that the sheer magnitude of his feelings for Carlos will scare him away, overwhelm him, destroy him. Be too much. 

Jay swallows nervously, raking his fingers through his hair, wondering why it took a whole carriage ride and bottle of alcohol before it dawned on him that just because the guy you love grabs you by the jacket and kisses you like he’s been dreaming of it, doesn’t mean he loves you back. 

Someone knocks on the bathroom door, and Jay jumps, feeling like he’s just been caught stealing. “Yeah?” he says, voice reedy and weak. 

“Jay?” Carlos says quietly. “Can I come in?” 

Jay has no self control, no self preservation, nothing at all. He’s at the door in a split second, unlatching and opening it so he can stare at Carlos, who has managed to change into a slouchy, thread-bare white teeshirt and boxers in the few minutes they’ve been apart. “Your dress is gone,” Jay says stupidly, thinking that it’s a fucking crime that someone can look so stunning in old PJs with holes and sweat-stains in the underarms. A _crime_. 

“Oh. Yeah. I mean, the dress got uncomfortable after a while...” he says awkwardly, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb and furrowing his brow. He’s hanging out in the bathroom with his bare feet pigeon toed and his eyes wide and smudgy in eyeliner, so scared, so young looking. Jay wants to badly to fold him into his arms, hold him tight enough to break him, shatter him to dust. “Um, do you want me to change back...?” Carlos asks after a few seconds, and Jay realizes he’s staring. 

“What? No, no,” he says, shaking his head. “Sorry. When I said you look good in everything you wear, I meant it.” He mumbles, feeling frozen to the floor, braced in the doorframe. “Even in way old pajamas I’ve seen you in a hundred times.” 

Carlos takes a single, careful step towards him. Everything feels so tense, so crazy now that they’re inside and under the light, instead of the dark safe secrecy of the alley in the city. “ _Fucking sexy_ was what you said, actually.” 

Jay colors, feeling very exposed. “Well, yeah. I meant it,” he says, and Carlos still looks _so worried_ , eyes blown black and wide and overflowing with pupil, like he thinks Jay might bolt, might back out. 

“Sooo...do you still want to...” Carlos starts, eyes dropping shiftily to the tile under his curled toes and Jay can’t stand it anymore.

He swallows thickly, crossing the threshold and closing the distance between them in two pointed strides, grabbing Carlos by his shirt and backing him all the way into his room. “Yes, yes, yes, yes,” he murmurs, palming up Carlos’s chest to his neck, his hair. “Fuck, I was _dying_ the whole ride here, the whole time in Ben’s room. Just wanted you like this, couldn’t think of anything else.” 

They reach the bed and Carlos collapses onto it, pulling Jay along with him, already panting, eyes wild and bright with relief. “Me too,” he breathes, hands all over Jay, pushing his beanie off so he can make fists in his hair. “Got so scared you maybe changed your mind. Still can hardly believe this is real.” 

Jay laughs brokenly into Carlos mouth before kissing him deep, sucking his lower lip, chewing on it, making Carlos yelp and mewl and arch up against him. “Dude, me either,” he mumbles into the corner of Carlos’s mouth. And because he _has_ to know, has to make sure it isn’t just him, he makes himself ask “When did...how long have you liked me?” It comes out quiet and nervous as he palms across Carlos’s ribs and up under his shirt and across his narrow chest, amazed by how badly Carlos _wants_ it, all the crazy, involuntary noises that are shuddering out of him. 

“It’s been so long I don’t even remember,” Carlos admits, flushing down his neck at the confession. Jay licks up the flush, kicking off his shoes and moving on top of the bed to straddle Carlos, thighs spread over his lap as he sits up so he can stare down at him, his perfect mouth all parted and pink and lickable. “At least a few years. Since I was old enough to know that the way I looked at you wasn’t normal,” Carlos adds.

“Really?” Jay breathes, touching Carlos everywhere as he talks, totally unable to stop. His lips, his arms, his stomach, heaving and rippling with each labored breath. 

Carlos nods, face coloring, eyes dropping. “Sorry if that’s too much.” 

“Dude, I had a mini-freak out in my room that _I_ was gonna be too much, before you came and knocked on the door.” 

Carlos shakes his head fiercely then, rubbing his palms over the splay of Jay’s thighs, thumbing into the ridges of his quadriceps. “I can promise that _nothing_ , nothing you say or do at all, is gonna be too much for me.” 

Jay’s heart clenches, choking him silent. He can’t really make words in this moment at all so he just nods, bending down and kissing Carlos instead, hungry and desperate and rough. He grinds against him, dragging their hips together and making him hiss and writhe under him. They part to breathe and Carlos murmurs, “What about you? How long have you wanted this? Since I started wearing dresses, probably, huh?” 

“God, _no_ ,” Jay tells him, digging nails into his skin. “Way, way before that. The dress thing only made it harder for me to hide. Because you were like, shaving your legs in our room every other day. And asking me to give you objective opinions on your outfits. Fucking with my head so much.” 

Carlos groans, rubbing his face into Jay’s neck, teeth scraping against his jaw. “You, you’re _always_ like that! You walk around the dorm in a _towel_ , you wrestle me to the ground like three times a day so you can rub your fingers all over my mouth, you do your homework _shirtless_ lying on the bed with your sweatpants basically half-off your ass and ask me to _help_ you...you said I’m unbearable but you’re like, ten times worse.” 

Jay blinks. He hadn’t even _thought_ that Carlos could think of his body like that, even though he knew Carlos liked guys and knew he was an objectively attractive guy. He hadn’t even _considered_ the possibility that Carlos could like _him_ , he was too wrapped up in self-pity and willful blindness. It all seems absurd, now, to think about all the times he stole glances at Carlos in the locker room when he was changing, only to look away hastily. All those times that Carlos was probably doing the _exact same thing_. He swallows, rutting mindlessly up against Carlos’s body, hands all over skin too-hot and too-smooth. “Sorry,” he says, grinning. “I guess I was kind of busy feeling sorry for myself.” 

Carlos sneaks his hands up inside Jay’s shirt, making a breathless, broken sound in his throat as he touches the wide span of his back. “You’re so hot,” he confesses, shaking his head in muted awe. “I’ve been so fucked up over it.”

“Fuck,” Jay murmurs as he pins Carlos to the mattress, wrists above his head so he can hold him down while he grinds into him hard, rocking between his parted thighs, stunned by how hard and hot Carlos is under him, a wet spot darkening the very front of his boxers. Jay wants to put his mouth over it, he wants to suck Carlos’s pre-cum from the fabric, he wants to pull aside the crotch of his boxers and rub his thumb agains the coarse black hair curled there, strange and secret. He wants every single thing from Carlos, his hair and his smoothness and his fear and his longing, _all_ of it. He swallows thickly, knowing that he’s gotta say something about it, he has to _tell_ Carlos that he’s so, so hot too, and he’s been fucked up over it, too, but there’s more than that storming inside him. 

He wants to slide an arm around Carlos’s waist and nuzzle against his ear, he wants to protect him, comfort him, kiss him. Girls are temporary, but Carlos is his best friend. Carlos is forever. He feels like that’s something you should _tell_ your best friend, especially if you’re lying on top of him kissing him, especially if you’re rutting against his lap hard enough you’re gonna come if you keep it up. “I’ve been so fucked up over you, too,” he says gruffly, their brows sliding together as he pulls away from their kiss, lips slipping from the slick heat of Carlos’s mouth with a wet sound. “Because I love you. Sorry if that’s really weird, it’s just the truth and I--”

Carlos catches his mouth, shuts him up, chokes him with his tongue and Jay kind of forgets what he was saying, and why it was making his heart beat so crazy. “You’re so _stupid_ sometimes,” Carlos murmurs between kisses, struggling to free his wrists from Jays grip so he can touch him again, clasping his hands behind Jay’s neck, holding him fast. “It’s not _weird,_ I love you too, I love you so, so much, I’m so _fucking_ in love with you Jay, come on,” he sighs. “Just kiss me, ok. Just kiss me.” 

Jay feels like he’s coming apart, his stomach too tight and fluttery and stunned for him to formulate words, so he just kisses Carlos. Kisses him and fists his hands in his shirt, kisses him and drags him closer, so, so glad that skirt didn’t actually go away, even though he wanted it to. He kind of owed a lot to it, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Carlos in Evie's coronation dress illustration! Excuse my mediocre artistic skills. Thanks for reading! 
> 
> http://phoenixmendozaart.tumblr.com/post/134285802740/carlos-in-evies-graduation-dress-go-read


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